


Vertical, Horizontal, Oblique

by blythely



Category: DCU - Comicverse, Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Bart's survey of superpowers, Ensemble Cast, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:12:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythely/pseuds/blythely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternatively titled: Bart Allen's Contingency Plans For When The Thanagarians Steal My Speed And I Have To Rely On My Wits And Stuff</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vertical, Horizontal, Oblique

 

 

::::

"You're cheating."

Bart creases his forehead and drops his jaw, indignant. Also, where is his positive reinforcement? "Am not--"

Tim holds up his hand. "You don't even realize. You're speeding once you throw your arms back and the velocity gives you more momentum."

"It gets the job done, doesn't it?" Bart grits his teeth and tries to erect an imaginary barbed-wire fence against the speedforce. He flips back, squinches his eyes shut to concentrate, and--

\--lands on his butt. He sighs. "Shutup. Show me again."

"You just have to trust your body," Tim says, "you don't need superpowers to do this." He bends his knees and somersaults back over Bart, lands in a perfect crouch behind him. "It all becomes a reflex, and automatic."

"How long did it take you to learn this?" Back to the end of the mat for another try, and this time Bart wobbles on his feet for a few seconds before overbalancing. This is not nearly as much fun as running, which is weird, because Tim's acrobatics _always_ look like fun.

It's obviously all in the presentation.

Bart tries again. He lands on his feet and stays there this time.

"Better. Do it again." Tim nods. "About a day to learn it--you're _speeding_ , Bart, that one doesn't count--and about four months to do it properly."

Lean, throw, spring, tuck up, throw down, conserve, spot, extend, land-----and balance.

In normal time it feels like freeze-frame for each motion. It's just like when Jay and Joan were watching Lawrence of Arabia and Bart thought he might actually die from how boring it was, so he watched it in relative time and counted the frames in a second, but Jay was not interested in hearing how many of the desert scenes were actually the same picture even though Bart thought that it proved his point.

"Well?" He's landed steady and upright twice now, but Tim just folds his arms and cocks his head sideways with a not-smirk.

"Two together, go on."

At the top of the second flip Bart remembers the little line drawings in his physics textbook of a figure doing a backwards somersault and thinks that it's really easy to learn about torque and momentum when you can draw a cape and mask on the diagrams.

 

::::

 

::::

The last time Bart saw Zatanna she had been wearing fishnet stockings and a black bodysuit that, at the time, he hadn't really processed as anything other than cool, but now when he finally finds her and she's sitting on the balcony of a crumbly plantation house in Augusta, wearing jeans and a stripey t-shirt and painting her toenails black, he's kindof sad, because that outfit was... yeah.

"Hi," Bart calls from the bottom of the stairs, because he gets a better response if he doesn't skid to a stop too close to people. The iron railing creaks a bit when he leans on it. Wally said that Zatanna was having some personal time, but from what Mia and Cassie and Vic have said just about *everyone* in the Justice League is having some personal time.

Zatanna caps the bottle of polish and waves him up. "Hey--Bart!" She has a one-sided smile but she kicks the other rocker in his direction. "I don't have a show for you to grandstand, but you want some lemonade?"

"Um. Thanks. Sorry about that. " Bart wishes he'd changed clothes, because it's really warm, but Zatanna's lemonade is the real stuff like Preston's mom used to make. Zatanna asks him about about being Kid Flash, about the Titans, tells him a joke about Max with a little wink.

Bart chews at his top lip when there's a pause. "You know how you took--how I lost my speed?"

Even in normal speed, Zatanna's blink is really slow. "Mainly I recall that I lost my magic because I had to follow you to another dimension that you thought was a computer game. The mortal peril was a little more high priority for me at the time."

Oops. "Um. Yeah. Just. I was wondering about that. How do you know you can do magic? Like, is it something you can learn?"

Zatanna rubs her forehead and says something very quietly that sounds like 'not another one'. "You really have to be born with it, Bart. I mean, yes, you learn it, and you learn how to use it, but you can't just--"

"Yas ffuts sdrawkcab?" Bart's tried that, lots. He knows it doesn't work. "I don't even understand how magic can _happen_! You're just born with some weird... thing that makes you able to break all the laws of science?"

Zatanna laughs and raises her eyebrows. "Dude. Tell me about it."

Probably she didn't catch him opening his mouth and closing it again before he got talking about the speedforce. "Heh," he says instead, nodding, and Bart hopes it sounds laidback and cool.

She's still grinning, and looking at him with her head tilted back in the rocker. Her hair's really black, glossy and thick, and little strands are sticking to her forehead.

Bart thinks about his list. "Hey, is it true you were a Green Lantern?"

"For about five minutes." Zatanna tips back the rest of her lemonade and narrows her eyes. "How'd you know that?"

"Uh--" Gar would probably kill him if it got out just how many, like, definitely-not-official JLA fansites Bart had found in his browser bookmarks. Not that Bart was complaining, because Zatanna looked even hotter in the green shiny corset thing, even if it was obviously photoshopped, but, "--someone told me."

"What was it like?" Bart twists in the chair. "Was it better than magic?"

"Eh," Zatanna says. "Same same but different." For a second-- _her_ second--Bart can see her face twist into a frown but then she smirks at him and whacks him on the arm. "Don't be an overachiever, kid. You're fast and you're cute and you're even looking like you won't be a shortarse all your life."

 

::::

 

::::

"Guys, I'm so sorry," Bart looks at the two mournful faces in the crib and forks up some more of Linda's cannelloni, "but your mom's cuisine gets better as you get older, if you know what I mean."

"Bart!" Linda sounds horrified and faintly giggly at the same time. "Did you come over just to empty my fridge?"

One of the twins gurgles and scrunches up its face, and Bart wasn't really doing anything but skimming the childcare section, but he does remember that that face is probably accompanied by--

"Oh, yick."

"Out, unless you want to--"

Bart is back in the kitchen in an instant, and he's just about to see what else there is to eat when he looks at the outside of the fridge door properly and realises Wally has put a timetable of his scheduled whereabouts underneath the emergency telephone numbers, so now Bart knows exactly when Wally _won't_ be at the Watchtower.

 

::::

No-one actually ever asked for the Legion flight rings back--at least, no-one ever asked Bart for his.

He does sometimes wonder why no-one else uses theirs, because, hello, flying? Tim had frowned and looked puzzled, and Vic had shrugged, and that was just odd, because on the list of all the people in the world who were going to lose something Bart was at the top and Tim and Vic were pretty much right at the bottom. Bart thinks he's lost his first one though, because there's only one in his old gym shoes, and he knows for a fact that Jay and especially Joan are never going near those particular sneakers.

He twists the ring around on his finger to stop it clunking against his Flash ring, and yeah, all those cliches about the earth looking beautiful from up here are totally true. Bart drums on the glass and thinks that it's pretty cool to be on the moon.

He can't get inside the normal way, of course, because the transportation tubes do some sort of DNA scan and probably vaporise anyone who isn't a JLA member, and the whole thought of those things makes Bart feel claustrophobic anyhow. He could vibrate through the glass but that'd maybe depressurize the inside or something, and besides it's the moon out here so, yay. He's just going to flatten himself to the observation window until Martian Manhunter and Green Lantern turn around.

Kon said that Superman had said that Martian Manhunter really liked Oreos, but Bart had no idea how to find out what Green Lantern liked, so he thought it was probably better just to turn up. It turns out that it's not exactly a secret about the Oreo thing, which is kindof a shame and makes Bart wish he hadn't pigged out so much on the pasta.

"I was wondering why there wasn't a, you know, junior Green Lantern," Bart says, and it is so, _so_ hard not to run around and check out the whole tower, because there's just something much cooler about the Sea of Serenity compared to the Bay.

"Like a sidekick?" Kyle is the Lantern on duty. He's secretly Bart's favourite even though the time when they were all age-swapped he was like, a total jerk, but then he had an exhibition in San Francisco that Raven wanted to see. Bart knows a lot about what he's supposed to think about modern art, but he really only liked paintings that told a story until he saw Kyle's huge gold and red sunrise.

Bart thinks that the other Lanterns are either too scary, or too gruff, or complete assholes, which is a shame because the power rings are pretty fucking awesome. Mia said that Roy had said that Jade was some kind of Green Lantern, too, which made sense except for Bart hadn't been able to see if she had a ring because whenever the Titans saw the Outsiders they always had other stuff going on, usually important work stuff, and there was never any time to get properly introduced. Which sucked.

Bart frowns for a second before sitting in the chair with the Flash symbol on it. "We're not all sidekicks," he says, "the Titans, I mean. Um. Just, some of us have the same kinds of specialty skills as older heroes, you know, but we don't necessarily work with them." Wow, that sounded really lame. "Except you guys. You don't have a teenager with GL powers and I was just wondering why. Is it like, too dangerous?"

Kyle grins and nods at Mr J'onnz, who is reading a book of Rannian poetry.

"It's not very polite to share a private joke," Bart blurts.

 

::::

::::

"The ring needs force of will." A giant hand stretches up from Green Lantern's ring and plucks the book from Mr J'onnz, replacing it with what looks like totally dull security readouts. "Most teenagers only have willpower when it comes to avoiding schoolwork or getting laid."

The Martian Manhunter makes a choked sound.

It is pretty funny, but-- "Like, determination?"

Kyle nods.

It's good that Bart knows that the ring is somehow keyed to the wearer's genetic signature, because it takes an awful lot of determination not to want to try.

 

::::

"Can't you be, like, a _baby_ orca? And then maybe there'd be some water left?"

Gar turns on his side and one big eye stares balefully up at Bart, who's sitting on the diving board, trying to figure out if the amount of water displaced by an adult male killer whale has made it suicidal to dive into the pool. Archimedes apparently only thought about gold crowns, not aquatic mammals with really splashy flippers.

There is actually enough water left when Gar transforms back to human, so Bart dives in and begins to do laps just above normal speed. Wally's new thing is all about upper-body strength--he's completely obsessed with something called the erector spinae muscles,which just makes Bart snort every time he says it--and unfortunately he's got Jay's approval for a Bart-specific fitness routine.

He does thirty and stops down the shallow end next to Gar. "You know that Tempest guy, right?"

"Yup. Although he's been undersea for a while. Haven't seen him in ages." Gar lifts himself out of the pool. Green skin means Bart can see definition more clearly, and maybe Wally has a point, because Gar's shoulders are broader and the muscles shift smoothly around his spine. "Bart?"

Bart looks up and Gar's smirking at him.

"Dude, are you checking me out?"

"Dude, just your obliques," Bart smirks back, and ducks under the water before Gar's kick can connect.

 

::::

 

::::

Cassie said that Wonder Woman had said that Green Arrow used to be a total womanizer, and Tim _hadn't_ said that Nightwing had said the same about Arsenal but it was completely obvious that's where he'd heard it, but the point is that Bart doesn't really think it's that big of a deal because hanging out at the Arrow-house is pretty cool.

Well, Arrow-apartment.

There's no way that the Bat-people play five-card stud poker on Wednesday nights. It takes two hands before Bart gets the reason they're playing Follow The Queen.

At home, Mia is more relaxed and also totally more foul-mouthed than she ever is at the Tower, which means that Bart finally stops thinking about how she's like Cissie and starts noticing that as well as being an archer she can kick some serious butt, which is, well, hot. She has an amazing CD collection and makes chilli that scalds the back of Bart's throat so badly that he gulps down whatever it is that Roy fills his glass with, which turns out to be whiskey and soda.

The buzz lasts long enough for Bart to push Mia back into the little kitchen and explain that he's going to change the red on his costume to match hers and can he kiss her, please, and she grins and says something about southern manners and kisses _him_ , and then they laugh, a lot, but it doesn't mean it's not something Bart thinks about afterwards.

Bart has long conversations with Connor about the speedforce and what it's actually like, and Bart realizes that for all that people think he talks a lot, he's just describing the pictures in his head, not thinking in words, and it's actually incredibly difficult to describe something that's pure sensation. Connor doesn't even pretend to try and get it but he listens, which is really great, because when people nod and pretend they have even the faintest clue about speed Bart wants to get out his old Impulse boots and stomp on their heads.

Roy isn't there a lot, so of course he's the one who notices that Bart is.

"Hey, kid," he says, sitting down cross-legged on the floor and disassembling something that Bart has learned is a modified Glauberyt, "the Garricks chuck you out on the street?"

"Shut up, Roy," Connor says mildly.

"Fuck off, asswipe," Mia chirps, and goes back to correcting the way Bart is rotating his shoulder on his drawing arm.

Ollie reminds Bart of Max for only one thing, which is that he'll say something completely outrageous and then wait for everyone to jump up and down spluttering but then he'll _always_ win the argument, except for Max didn't grin like Ollie and never told Bart to go and get him a beer.

Ollie shows Bart how to improve his precision vision for his throwing aim and can't stop laughing when Bart tells him about Wally's fixation on deltoids. He also arranges for a bunch of different newspapers to be delivered to the Garrick household. Jay's face scrinches up when he sees the Boston Review come through the mailbox.

 

::::

::::

"--so I was just kindof wondering, do you think that sex could be some kind of superpower, too?"

Kon's mouth is open a little bit, but he closes it right up when Bart says the word sex.

"Dude, she's my... cousin. Thingy. I just... Don't. Want. To. Know."

Bart jumps down from the windowsill where's he's been sitting after following Kon back to Smallville to make sure he hadn't taken the remark about replacing him the wrong way. After sitting through a torturous hour of Walt Whitman, a girl in Bart's English class had explained the concept of emo, and Bart thinks he has more of a handle on Kon now.

"Not her specifically but, you know, in general. I mean, everyone takes a split-second longer to start fighting when someone's got a really nice ass. Or tits. Or even a good smile, you know? I just wonder if this is something we should be capitalising on, if we're gonna be really good at our jobs, you know?"

Bart looks in the mirror at himself and at Kon's reflection behind him, which is frowny and arm-crossed. Bart turns around and squints back his ass. "We could call it the Nightwing effect."

"I am so not having this... conversation... with--" Kon falters, and Bart blinks, because this was purely preliminary discussion with colleagues and not actually a test-drive, but hey. He strips off the top of his suit.

Kon is... blushing. Wow.

"Why not?" Bart takes off his boots, and gloves, and Kon's little oof-noise when he sits down on his bed is really unexpected and also fantastic, and Bart can't stop grinning.

::::  



End file.
